Hamas versus Al-Qaeda

by Saleh Al-Naami

Global Research, July 21, 2007
Al Ahram Weekly - 2007-07-12

".....Gawaher Ghadir, 21, is one of very few female students who doesn't wear a head scarf at the Al-Azhar University in Gaza. Nobody, either from Hamas or the security services belonging to the Hamas administration has ever asked her to do so. And she doesn't think that anyone is going to.

Ahmed Ghannash, who sells music tapes and CDs from a stand on Al-Mukhtar Street, the thoroughfare that divides Gaza city into two, said that he resumed business after Hamas gained power. In the past, unknown gunmen threatened to burn his stand unless he stopped selling music recordings.

Islam Shahwan, police spokesman at the Foreign Ministry, told Al-Ahram Weekly that the attacks on music merchants and Internet cafés are now close to zero, down from about 35 attacks per month in the past. In the six months before Gaza fell into Hamas's hands, an Islamic extremist group calling itself the Islamic Swords of Justice -- a group believed to embrace some of Al-Qaeda's ideas -- was particularly active in Gaza. That group called for the closure of Internet cafés and music shops. It attacked some of the parties organised at various wedding halls in Gaza and torched some of the educational institutions run by Christians. The group once threatened to harm female presenters working for Palestine Television unless they covered their heads.

Father Manuel Musallam, head of the Latin community to which many Gaza Christians belong, said that his congregation feels more secure under Hamas control. He added that relations between his community and Hamas are very strong. Musallam goes regularly to visit Ismail Haniyeh, who briefs him on current developments.....

So it is hard to take seriously President Mahmoud Abbas's claim that Hamas was trying to establish an "emirate of darkness" in Gaza along the style of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan......

Interestingly enough, Abbas's suggestion that Hamas was mimicking Al-Qaeda made no impact at all in Israel, where the issue was put to rest a long time ago......

Former Shabak chief Ofer Dekel, a man who used to be in charge of security operations against Hamas, is of the same opinion. He told Yediot Aharonot on 16 March 2006 that massive differences existed between Hamas and Al-Qaeda. Hamas believes in a combination of political work and military pressure and it understands the need for regional alliances and for public support. None of this is true for Al-Qaeda, Dekel remarked. "